Turkey's abrupt ban on Twitter Inc stirred concerns on Friday that the country may pull the plug on other social media and Internet services as it grapples with internal turmoil. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has in the past threatened to block  Facebook  Inc and...

Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians on Saturday during a raid on a home in the occupied West Bank to capture a wanted Hamas Islamist militant, the Israeli military said. Hamas supporters carried three bodies through the streets of the West Bank city of Jenin, shouting...

Libyan troops fought with rebels occupying oil ports on Saturday after fighters attacked an army base where military reinforcements were preparing for an offensive to break the blockade, local residents said. Anti-aircraft gunfire and explosions were heard late at night and again...

From the Lebanese border town of Arsal, you can see the smoke as  Syria n government warplanes bomb rebel positions across the frontier. But its problems are even closer. Arsal is Sunni Muslim and the neighbouring town of al-Labwa is Shi'ite. Their fate shows just how dangerous...

 The first U.N. convoy carrying aid from  Turkey  into Syria  was halted on Friday, less than 24 hours after the long-awaited humanitarian mission began, with one aid official blaming "administrative hurdles" thrown up by the Syrian government. The convoy only...

The Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church Ignatius Zakka Iwas, the leader of one of world's oldest Christian sects, has died. He was 80. Syrian state news agency SANA said Iwas was admitted into a German hospital for treatment Feb. 20. He died on Friday in Germany after...

Mohammad, a 15-year-old Syrian kid who fled to Amman, Jordan, with family a year ago and worked there, said last Friday he wants to go to school just as local children do. Mohammad has been working in a butcher's shop for five months. His job is cutting the vegetables, grinding the...

Syrian refugee children living in Jordan this week performed a silent play entitled “We Emerged to Light,” which tells the tale of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Starring 21 children, the play was directed by Syrian actor Jalal al-Taweel. The production uses...

Gun battles have erupted again in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, with gunmen firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. At least three people were killed in clashes overnight linked to the civil war in neighbouring Syria, Lebanese police sources said. Two gunmen...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law the treaty formally making Crimea part of the Russian Federation, after it was approved by the parliament, on the same day Ukraine capped a landmark alliance with the European Union. All 155 senators present...

In a tweet, Turkey's president has hit out at the government ban of Twitter, as opposition leaders vowed to mount a legal challenge to the measure that came just days ahead of crucial polls. The popular micro-blogging site, one of several that has been used to publish allegations of...

Most Syrians believe that disregarding mother’s day this year is a humanitarian obligation, for no need to light a candle on mothers’ wounds who became either mothers of martyrs or detainees, or in the best cases mothers of homeless and threatened by the Syrian regime. A...

Sardar Ahmad, a staff reporter at AFP, has been killed in a Taliban attack on Kabul's Serena hotel. Ahmad, 40, was shot dead along with his wife and two of his three children when four teenage gunmen attacked the hotel on Thursday evening. Hired in 2003 to cover daily briefings by the...

The German government has asked federal prosecutors to examine whether German firms broke the law by exporting equipment to  Syria  during the 1980s and early 1990s that may have helped the country to develop chemical weapons. An  economy  ministry spokesman...

Taliban gunmen killed nine people, including four foreigners, in an attack on a luxury hotel used by U.N. staff and prominent Afghan politicians in Kabul on Thursday night, before being shot dead by security forces, witnesses and police said on Friday. The assault on the heavily...

Syria, Russia and Afghanistan have the largest numbers of people fleeing their homelands to seek asylum, and most are turning to Europe, the United Nations refugee agency said in a report Friday. Syria's 3-year-old civil war generated 56,351 asylum seekers in 2013, more than double the...

The ousted chairman of rebels Joint Chief of Staff, General Salim Idriss revealed to Zaman Alwasl that he wrote his resignation to the fronts’ leaders who went to negotiate with the coalition president Mr. Ahmed al-Jarba, to end the crisis that followed Idris’s dismissal....

  A U.N. convoy of about 80 trucks is ready to cross the Turkish border into Syria for the first time, aid officials said Wednesday, in a step they hope will pave the way for humanitarian access to the country’s most desperate areas . The convoy became possible...

Lebanon's parliament gave a newly-formed cabinet a vote of confidence on Thursday, ending almost a year of political deadlock during which the country has been pulled further into the civil war in neighboring  Syria . The approval - by 96 of the 101 parliamentarians who...

Israel has progressed with plans for more than 2,000 new homes in six West Bank settlements, an official said Thursday, in a move likely to further endanger peace talks.   Guy Inbar, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry unit responsible for civilian affairs in the...